I had an online discussion with someone (not on this list) that was
being very patronising and abusive while telling me that hi is
transcoding a bluray rip to 2gb (from 25gb) and it is completely
lossless.
However; this does highlight a point jedi's point. both are 1080p
encodes of a movie, both are in H264 and yet not both will playback on
the same hardware, the more data the more processing required.
Throw into the mix a different codec (and lack of hardware decoding)
and absolutely (unfortunately) one box may play one
720i/720p/1080i/1080p file but not another.
However... in response to the original poster; I have just seen my
next frontend:
designed to be fanless; ION2 system with DC power input (i.e. no
traditional PSU required, just a laptop type power-brick).
http://www.zotac.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=546:zotac-updates-ion-itx-platforms&catid=1&Itemid=268&lang=un
R